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What are people's thoughts on 4e, now that the books are out? My feeling is that its a bit front-loaded. Having looked thoroughly only through the Rogue
section, I could be wrong about the others, but what I mainly took away was that there was little qualitative differences from
level 4 to 10. After level 4, it seems like all your encounters and dailies are more or less rehashes of previous ones. You
get feats, sure, but they're not that great yet without additional splatbooks.

And they completely gimped INT! In 4e, other than for Wizards, no one else would take INT over DEX, because DEX skills and
Initative is so much more important than INT. Plus DEX goes to AC for light armor.

The monsters are also looking a bit weak due to the saving throw being a flat d20 >= 10. Poison is absolutely worthless now
without stat damage.

Healing potions look a bit strange now.. minor action to use, but you have to spend a Healing Surge... which I assume implies
you can only drink and benefit from so many potions a day before they "lose effect?" While I can see a rationalization there,
I'm not sure I like it from a game balance point of view.. players should be able to dump their money on consumables to give
themselves more staying power if they want, dammit!

Healing potions look a bit strange now.. minor action to use, but you have to spend a Healing Surge... which I assume implies
you can only drink and benefit from so many potions a day before they "lose effect?" While I can see a rationalization there,
I'm not sure I like it from a game balance point of view.. players should be able to dump their money on consumables to give
themselves more staying power if they want, dammit!

Well, you see, when you run out of healing surges it means that even magical forms of healing can't heal you because you're to tired.

As for powers looking like rehash, then I guess your going to have to get yourself a DDI subscription to get more stuff.

Oh. Well ... um ... I guess that means those stores started selling them as soon as they got them then? :: Sigh :: Why can't I live in an area that gets that lucky about stuff like this. Video games? "Nope. We can't sell it until xxx date." Books? "Nope. We can't sell it until xxx date."

Cheap healing potions that require you to expend a healing surge, seem fine to me. I'll probably also provide other potions based on the cure light wounds power, that don't require a healing surge, but will be more expensive.

The prices of potions seem a bit off to me... a potion that heals 50 HP, costs 25,000 gold? That is the same price as a +3 flaming sword....

Let me see... a potion I use once, or a +3 flaming sword....what do you think I'm spending my gold on?

Seriously, they must be trying to tell us there will be no easy massive, magical healing, or am I missing something?

The Books where leaked last week on torrent sites. so most people are viewing them through there. the version on the torrents sites is the draft that goes to the printing press. but eveything is there.

Yeah, on the pre-gen characters in the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure, I don't understand why WotC made abilities which basically make a character use a healing surge. If I was an evil NPC, I'd make sure to have that ability and use it on fully-healed PCs at the beginning of a battle. It just makes no sense why an ability would make a PC use a healing surge. Heal them? Sure, that's fine. Make them use a surge when they could do that on their own? Uh, no thanks.

Edit: Oh, so it's like what happened with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Yeah, on the pre-gen characters in the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure, I don't understand why WotC made abilities which basically make a character use a healing surge. If I was an evil NPC, I'd make sure to have that ability and use it on fully-healed PCs at the beginning of a battle. It just makes no sense why an ability would make a PC use a healing surge. Heal them? Sure, that's fine. Make them use a surge when they could do that on their own? Uh, no thanks.

Edit: Oh, so it's like what happened with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Using a healing surge(second wind) takes a standard action. So, it is not like using an ability that lets an ally use a healing surge is useless. Pretty much all healing except for higher level cleric/warlord heals requires a healing surge from the PC. It's a part of resource management. You need to manage your healing surges. Without expending healing surges when PCs get healed, you are essentially taking out resource management and giving the signal that "don't worry about being conservative with healing, just go nuts!!!". It means the cleric doesn't want to spend every turn healing just because he "can". I think it works pretty slick!

I'm making one of those, I felt obligated to take arcane initiate to get a second skill that uses int just because beyond warlord or wizard, int is really worthless, and even though I'm an int warlord I still have a good dex because a couple sword feats I want have a dex requirement... Int used to be nice to have a decent score in for skill point and extra languages, now you get neither.

As for the OP, keep in mind after 13th level you're actually swapping out powers instead of only getting additional powers, so having a lot of powers that are higher level rehashes is to be expected.

At any rate I'm excited. The warlord looks to have some neat things that can greatly effect the battlefield and there's a lot of strategy with him even at first level where you or a ally might want to hold an action to set up sweet combos. I can't wait to use knock them down one round followed up with a beat them to the ground the next round. I can't get that drowning pool song out of my head because of it.

Yeah, on the pre-gen characters in the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure, I don't understand why WotC made abilities which basically make a character use a healing surge. If I was an evil NPC, I'd make sure to have that ability and use it on fully-healed PCs at the beginning of a battle. It just makes no sense why an ability would make a PC use a healing surge. Heal them? Sure, that's fine. Make them use a surge when they could do that on their own? Uh, no thanks.
.

They can't just use them on their own. You get to spend a healing surge only when a power lets you. Everyone gets second wind, but that's only once an encounter, takes a standard, etc. So cleric powers that let people spend a healing surge for free, often with extra bonus healing, are good.

What are people's thoughts on 4e, now that the books are out? My feeling is that its a bit front-loaded. Having looked thoroughly only through the Rogue section, I could be wrong about the others, but what I mainly took away was that there was little qualitative differences from level 4 to 10. After level 4, it seems like all your encounters and dailies are more or less rehashes of previous ones. You get feats, sure, but they're not that great yet without additional splatbooks.

I disagree. I went through the Cleric yesterday VERY throughoughly. Yes, there is some rehashing - the "heal someone when you hit an opponent" power had several variations (heal someone, heal everyone nearby, heal everyone nearby without using a healing surge, heal people even further away...). The "heal all allies in an AoE plus damage all enemies in that AoE" also had a few variants, and I think there were two or three variants of "deal AoE elemental damage plus sustain minor to deal damage each turn".

That said, there were also lots of very unique powers - the Seals, for instance, are all pretty distinctive and all have very interesting applications. Their conjurations are also quite cool and seem like they all work quite well in interesting and distinctive ways. Blade Barrier is a cool power as well, and there were lots of other nifty powers which did a variety of things across the levels. Utility powers seem to be something of a mixed bag; some of the cleric utility powers are awesome and others are a bit lame.

And they completely gimped INT! In 4e, other than for Wizards, no one else would take INT over DEX, because DEX skills and
Initative is so much more important than INT. Plus DEX goes to AC for light armor.

They changed the skill system, so int really couldn't add skills or what have you. Honestly, I don't think it really is a big deal - it is still used for a number of skills and probably feats as well, and the fact that Arcana uses it means that it won't be totally neglected.

The monsters are also looking a bit weak due to the saving throw being a flat d20 >= 10. Poison is absolutely worthless now without stat damage.

You're just wrong, here; monsters are plenty powerful. Remember that the monsters also are likely to save, and this means that on average a status effect will last roughly two rounds on a PCD OR monster. Poison isn't worthless; this is a completely nonsensical statement. It still does things that make it quite worthwhile; ability damage wasn't a good mechanic in the first place, hp damage is fine, and other negative effects on those poisoned are also fine and interesting.

Healing potions look a bit strange now.. minor action to use, but you have to spend a Healing Surge... which I assume implies you can only drink and benefit from so many potions a day before they "lose effect?" While I can see a rationalization there, I'm not sure I like it from a game balance point of view.. players should be able to dump their money on consumables to give themselves more staying power if they want, dammit!

You're not thinking about it from a balance perspective. Please don't say you are. It is bad to allow players to buy tons of consumables and screw themselves in the long run for a boost in the short run. It is bad for people to have wands of CLW to keep fighting at full HP all the time regardless of how much you throw at them. GP should not equate to HP, simply put.

Overcompensation: The design team for 4th Edition clearly overcompensated for how out of hand they let things get in 3rd Edition. To the point of being ridiculous and rendering abilities all but useless. Take Discern Lies as a prime example. It costs 140gp each and every time you want to use it (and 360gp just to learn it at all), it takes you ten minutes to cast it, requires a feat to use, only grants a +[Religion check] bonus to your Insight passive skill, and it only lasts five minutes. What the hell are you supposed to use that for? Ask a guy to wait ten minutes while you blow a small fortune, then hope it actually works when he does start talking again (all the while hoping he gets to the meat of why you cast it in the first place before the ritual wears off)? Ridiculous.

Another failing is on the apparent insistence that the old Vancian magic system was awesome and the foundation for how every class functions in 4th Edition. Don't be fooled, it's still there... only modified. Instead of having X 1st level spells, Y 2nd level spells, and Z 3rd level spells each day, you get X at-will powers, Y encounter powers, and Z daily powers. And worse? It's basically the old Sorcerer problem for everyone. Not only do you get a limited use of your abilities each day, but you have a limited selection of them to boot. And unlike Sorcerers of old, you can't even mix-and-match them (like 3 fireballs one day, or a fireball and two dispel magics the next).

Even worse, after looking in numerous places, I couldn't find any way to handle powers outside of combat. At best, some powers say they last five minutes when used... and most of those powers are Encounter powers, which doesn't help at all since you're not always having an encounter when you want to use one.

Non-Combat Situations Ignored: There's very few -- if any -- powers in the game that can be used outside of combat. At best you have skills for for these situations, but they make the DCs so ridiculously high and require you to roll multiple times to do anything that your chances of success are pretty hopeless unless you can find some means to maximize your rolls. What's worse, the powers that do exist for such situations are often just as ridiculous as Discern Lies.

Take Comprehend Languages for instance. It, too, is a ritual that requires a feat, a chunk of gold, and a hefty casting time. Sure, at least this one lasts 24 hours, but you only "learn" one language for the entirity of the operation and you can't even speak or write the language unless your Arcana DC is 35 or higher... something that's nearly impossible to do during the heroic tier and which is largely unreliable even in the paragon tier. Oy.

Scaling: There's no real sense of progression from what I can tell. Yes, you gain more abilities as you advance, but that's it. For every +1 you get, your opponents essentially gain +1 to resist you, be it through the use of a Defense rating or counter-skills. It's basically Game Balance for Dummies. Keep everyone the same more or less at every level and you have game balance! Who cares if it strips away fun or diversity?

Sloppiness: A lot of the design details are very, very sloppy. Multiclassing is the leading example. Not only are there many, many, MANY situations where you have to have basic class features in order to use a power or make a power viable, but most powers are so tightly controlled that there's really no point in even multiclassing anyway. Take the Rogue for example. Almost all of their powers expressely require you to use a specific weapon or type of weapon. Weapons that no other class really uses, and weapons that aren't really required by the fluff of the power.

Heck, there's even examples where it seems the design team specifically wanted to be a dick to multiclassing. Wizards are another great example. Say you want to multiclass as a Wizard so that you can have access to Cantrips. Guess what? Even though for all intents and purposes, all four Cantrips are the equivalence of a single spell... that fact is something only dedicated Wizards have access to. If you multiclass as a Wizard you have to choose one specific cantrip that you can only use as an Encounter power. Apparently, being able to use your staff as a lantern is of equal power to shooting magic missiles... but ONLY if you're multiclassing as a Wizard. If you're a dedicated Wizard you get all four for the price of one. (Hell, you get all four in -addition- to your normal retinue.)

Best of all? Even if you do choose Light as your multiclass encounter ability, it's pretty damn useless as it apparently only lasts five minutes if you're not in combat. ???

THE NOT-SO-BAD STUFF

Bookkeeping: Keeping track of what your character can do is a lot easier now, even at the higher levels thanks pretty much to the Bad Things listed above. All you really gain are additional powers and magic items. Practically everything else improves at exactly the same rate for everyone; Defense, Skills, Feats, and etc.

Combat Durations: Unlike in previous editions, the higher your level becomes the longer combat takes. On one hand this is a great thing and exactly how it should be; two epic opponents should have a battle that rages on and on. On the other hand, it's a bad thing because it's due solely to the fact that abilities and powers don't really improve with level (only your chances to attack with them/defend against them, which occurs at nearly identical rates). Hit points, however, do increase. So while that power of choice you love so much could kill your foe after two or three hits at 1st level will take about twenty or so hits to do the same job at 30. Course, the same is true of that level 25 power you picked up recently, too. (Well, maybe only fifteen hits instead of twenty, but still).

OVERALL VIEW

All-in-all, it's a huge improvement if all you care about is beating stuff up. It's a huge disappointment if you prefer roleplaying scenarios and non-combat situations.

Overcompensation: The design team for 4th Edition clearly overcompensated for how out of hand they let things get in 3rd Edition. To the point of being ridiculous and rendering abilities all but useless. Take Discern Lies as a prime example. It costs 140gp each and every time you want to use it (and 360gp just to learn it at all), it takes you ten minutes to cast it, requires a feat to use, only grants a +[Religion check] bonus to your Insight passive skill, and it only lasts five minutes. What the hell are you supposed to use that for? Ask a guy to wait ten minutes while you blow a small fortune, then hope it actually works when he does start talking again (all the while hoping he gets to the meat of why you cast it in the first place before the ritual wears off)? Ridiculous.

Another failing is on the apparent insistence that the old Vancian magic system was awesome and the foundation for how every class functions in 4th Edition. Don't be fooled, it's still there... only modified. Instead of having X 1st level spells, Y 2nd level spells, and Z 3rd level spells each day, you get X at-will powers, Y encounter powers, and Z daily powers. And worse? It's basically the old Sorcerer problem for everyone. Not only do you get a limited use of your abilities each day, but you have a limited selection of them to boot. And unlike Sorcerers of old, you can't even mix-and-match them (like 3 fireballs one day, or a fireball and two dispel magics the next).

Even worse, after looking in numerous places, I couldn't find any way to handle powers outside of combat. At best, some powers say they last five minutes when used... and most of those powers are Encounter powers, which doesn't help at all since you're not always having an encounter when you want to use one.

Non-Combat Situations Ignored: There's very few -- if any -- powers in the game that can be used outside of combat. At best you have skills for for these situations, but they make the DCs so ridiculously high and require you to roll multiple times to do anything that your chances of success are pretty hopeless unless you can find some means to maximize your rolls. What's worse, the powers that do exist for such situations are often just as ridiculous as Discern Lies.

Take Comprehend Languages for instance. It, too, is a ritual that requires a feat, a chunk of gold, and a hefty casting time. Sure, at least this one lasts 24 hours, but you only "learn" one language for the entirity of the operation and you can't even speak or write the language unless your Arcana DC is 35 or higher... something that's nearly impossible to do during the heroic tier and which is largely unreliable even in the paragon tier. Oy.

Scaling: There's no real sense of progression from what I can tell. Yes, you gain more abilities as you advance, but that's it. For every +1 you get, your opponents essentially gain +1 to resist you, be it through the use of a Defense rating or counter-skills. It's basically Game Balance for Dummies. Keep everyone the same more or less at every level and you have game balance! Who cares if it strips away fun or diversity?

Sloppiness: A lot of the design details are very, very sloppy. Multiclassing is the leading example. Not only are there many, many, MANY situations where you have to have basic class features in order to use a power or make a power viable, but most powers are so tightly controlled that there's really no point in even multiclassing anyway. Take the Rogue for example. Almost all of their powers expressely require you to use a specific weapon or type of weapon. Weapons that no other class really uses, and weapons that aren't really required by the fluff of the power.

Heck, there's even examples where it seems the design team specifically wanted to be a dick to multiclassing. Wizards are another great example. Say you want to multiclass as a Wizard so that you can have access to Cantrips. Guess what? Even though for all intents and purposes, all four Cantrips are the equivalence of a single spell... that fact is something only dedicated Wizards have access to. If you multiclass as a Wizard you have to choose one specific cantrip that you can only use as an Encounter power. Apparently, being able to use your staff as a lantern is of equal power to shooting magic missiles... but ONLY if you're multiclassing as a Wizard. If you're a dedicated Wizard you get all four for the price of one. (Hell, you get all four in -addition- to your normal retinue.)

Best of all? Even if you do choose Light as your multiclass encounter ability, it's pretty damn useless as it apparently only lasts five minutes if you're not in combat. ???

As for Discern Lies, I believe that it was decided that easy, unbeatable lie detection abilities ruined more political/intrigue/whodunnit adventures than it ever helped.

The atwill/encounter/daily system is NOT Vancian. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Encounter powers can be used once an encounter. If you aren't in combat and you use one, it's gone until you take a short rest, which takes 5 minutes. So in essence, you can use encounter powers outside of combat every 5 minutes.

The multiclassing stuff isn't sloppy. It was done that way on purpose. The multiclassing in 4e is NOT the same as the one in 3e, and it was not meant to be. If you want Cantrips, play a Wizard. If you want Lay on Hands, play a Paladin. If you want Cantrips AND Lay On Hands, you lose. That may not be ideal for everyone, but it isn't sloppy.

Oh, and just to clarfiy, the wizard multiclass feat lets you choose a 1st-level wizard at-will as an encounter power. You can't choose Cantrips, because those are a class ability, not a regular power. So you get either Scorching Burst, Magic Missile, Thunderwave, Cloud of Daggers, or Ray of Frost.

In my opinion, now that there's a ritual system, you can easily put whatever magic you want into the game! I've always hated 3.x's emphasis on combat magic. Despite what others are posting, I feel that 4.x actually has potential for LESS combat magic, not because WoTC wrote it in, but because there's now a great system that lets you make up and hand out spells. Because all the combat stuff is taken care of, the GM only has to worry about playing with non-combat stuff. Which is much more fun!

For instance, I've always wanted weather magic. Simple: have a village where the local young witch has a 'rain dance' ritual. In other village, the old shaman knows the 'go away rain' ritual.

Miss the old exciting spells? Make them into rituals; hand out as scrolls.

I think, *because* the core is so balanced and predictable, it's a lot easier to houserule stuff in 4ed, which means that you can just drop in whatever you like.

ALSO: No more trading out your combat spell slot for 'stone into mud', which I used to always prepare and have never ONCE used in all my games! Now I have dependable combat spells, but, with rituals, I can have infinite interesting non-combat spells.

In other words, I feel that the predictability of the new system and its focus on combat to the point that it eliminates opportunity cost for non-combat spells will, in the long run, be a big improvement.

Overcompensation: The design team for 4th Edition clearly overcompensated for how out of hand they let things get in 3rd Edition. To the point of being ridiculous and rendering abilities all but useless. Take Discern Lies as a prime example. It costs 140gp each and every time you want to use it (and 360gp just to learn it at all), it takes you ten minutes to cast it, requires a feat to use, only grants a +[Religion check] bonus to your Insight passive skill, and it only lasts five minutes. What the hell are you supposed to use that for? Ask a guy to wait ten minutes while you blow a small fortune, then hope it actually works when he does start talking again (all the while hoping he gets to the meat of why you cast it in the first place before the ritual wears off)? Ridiculous.

I disagree. This is actually a good thing; the purpose of a spell like this is to question a prisoner or someone who is dubious but willing to undergo it to show they're telling the truth. Basically it is meant to be an inquisitional spell, not something you use casually to gain a massive advantage in most social scenes.

Having it not allow them to resist it is a bad thing, and this version allows a person who is very good at bluffing to resist it, but most normal people simply won't be able to. +[Religion] more or less DOUBLES your insight; assuming both are trained (which if you're playing an inquisitor type character you should have them both trained) you're looking at, at 8th level, a +5 + 4 + 5 = +14 insight bonus, and a +5 + 4 + 1 = +10 religion bonus (assuming only a +1 bonus to int). That means that your total bonus after you cast the spell is +24; given their bluff check is probably roughly on the order of +14 even if they're a GOOD liar, chances are you are going to catch almost all of their lies. Basically, it lets you act as if you were many levels higher, making it so people of your level can almost never successfully lie to you, people much below your level probably -can't- lie to you. Indeed, if it is to your PASSIVE, and that is 10 + INSIGHT, you're looking at 34, which is actually -unbeatable- by someone with a mere +14 bonus to Bluff.

Another failing is on the apparent insistence that the old Vancian magic system was awesome and the foundation for how every class functions in 4th Edition. Don't be fooled, it's still there... only modified. Instead of having X 1st level spells, Y 2nd level spells, and Z 3rd level spells each day, you get X at-will powers, Y encounter powers, and Z daily powers. And worse? It's basically the old Sorcerer problem for everyone. Not only do you get a limited use of your abilities each day, but you have a limited selection of them to boot. And unlike Sorcerers of old, you can't even mix-and-match them (like 3 fireballs one day, or a fireball and two dispel magics the next).

You don't understand the problem. (Running out of dailies = you're useless, and because you only use dailies you're either overpowered (as they're stronger to compensate) or suck (because they aren't stronger, you run out, and they don't))
You don't understand what Vancian casting is. (A daily spell slot system, which ONLY Wizards have, and ONLY for their dailies, this edition.)

The system is actually awesome, and has nothing to do with vancian casting. It is a completely different system and it works very differently; you can't switch out your encounter and at-will powers every day because (le gasp!) they're what your powers are; they are what you know how to do. You don't change what you know how to do on a daily basis; that's just silly.

Even worse, after looking in numerous places, I couldn't find any way to handle powers outside of combat. At best, some powers say they last five minutes when used... and most of those powers are Encounter powers, which doesn't help at all since you're not always having an encounter when you want to use one.

You can use encounter powers again after you take a short rest. This has been known for months.

Non-Combat Situations Ignored: There's very few -- if any -- powers in the game that can be used outside of combat. At best you have skills for for these situations, but they make the DCs so ridiculously high and require you to roll multiple times to do anything that your chances of success are pretty hopeless unless you can find some means to maximize your rolls. What's worse, the powers that do exist for such situations are often just as ridiculous as Discern Lies.

Yet another completely nonsensical argument. MANY powers can be used outside of combat; while mostly utility powers, there are other powers which are also useful outside of combat (such as some AoE cleric powers which allow for better, faster healing). Have you even read the book? No, of course not, as you wouldn't be making such a bad argument if you had.

Not all powers can be, and many cannot, but what would you expect? You shouldn't have to sacrifice combat effectiveness for out of combat effectiveness; you should be good at both.

Take Comprehend Languages for instance. It, too, is a ritual that requires a feat, a chunk of gold, and a hefty casting time. Sure, at least this one lasts 24 hours, but you only "learn" one language for the entirity of the operation and you can't even speak or write the language unless your Arcana DC is 35 or higher... something that's nearly impossible to do during the heroic tier and which is largely unreliable even in the paragon tier. Oy.

This is good. It means you

1) Are encouraged to learn languages, because you can't just pretend to know every language in existance all the time via spells.
2) Don't have to learn a seperate ritual for speaking and writing a language; it is the same ritual, but only available at higher levels.

Scaling: There's no real sense of progression from what I can tell. Yes, you gain more abilities as you advance, but that's it. For every +1 you get, your opponents essentially gain +1 to resist you, be it through the use of a Defense rating or counter-skills. It's basically Game Balance for Dummies. Keep everyone the same more or less at every level and you have game balance! Who cares if it strips away fun or diversity?

It doesn't strip away fun or diversity. This is yet another completely nonsensical argument. I know this is hard for you to understand, but this is how scaling works - you become stronger but your foes become stronger as well. What would you expect, you to get stronger and them NOT to get stronger? That obviously doesn't work.

You require mutual progression to maintain balance.

Sloppiness: A lot of the design details are very, very sloppy. Multiclassing is the leading example. Not only are there many, many, MANY situations where you have to have basic class features in order to use a power or make a power viable, but most powers are so tightly controlled that there's really no point in even multiclassing anyway. Take the Rogue for example. Almost all of their powers expressely require you to use a specific weapon or type of weapon. Weapons that no other class really uses, and weapons that aren't really required by the fluff of the power.

Ah ignorance.

Many situations? I read through the ENTIRE cleric VERY throughly and did not see a SINGLE power of the cleric's which required you to be a cleric to use it effectively. Zero. None.

Sure, rogues require you to use light blades. Who cares? Seriously, if you're multiclassing into a rogue, that's the POINT of the rogue - to be an agile fighter who knows where it hurts. The light blades are weapons which exploit that. No one else uses them normally, but if you're multiclassing into rogue you're probably being more swashbuckler-esque so using them is entirely logical. And a spellcaster who goes into rogue will probably use light blades because they aren't proficient in better weapons anyway.

This isn't sloppy in any way. This is whining and you using words you apparently don't understand the meaning of.

Sloppy is identical powers at different levels or similar; sloppy is 3.5 or your arguments. Sloppy is not "me not being able to make a broken character".

Heck, there's even examples where it seems the design team specifically wanted to be a dick to multiclassing. Wizards are another great example. Say you want to multiclass as a Wizard so that you can have access to Cantrips. Guess what? Even though for all intents and purposes, all four Cantrips are the equivalence of a single spell... that fact is something only dedicated Wizards have access to. If you multiclass as a Wizard you have to choose one specific cantrip that you can only use as an Encounter power. Apparently, being able to use your staff as a lantern is of equal power to shooting magic missiles... but ONLY if you're multiclassing as a Wizard. If you're a dedicated Wizard you get all four for the price of one. (Hell, you get all four in -addition- to your normal retinue.)

Feats are worse than class powers. This isn't sloppy, this is good design. A feat should not give you all the powers of another class, which is what you're arguing for here. Your argument is simply not reasonable.

Best of all? Even if you do choose Light as your multiclass encounter ability, it's pretty damn useless as it apparently only lasts five minutes if you're not in combat. ???

Light's "real" purpose is to negate magical darkness, which is why it is handy; if you need light out of combat, use a lantern.

As for Discern Lies, I believe that it was decided that easy, unbeatable lie detection abilities ruined more political/intrigue/whodunnit adventures than it ever helped.

Which maybe, if you had the capacity to read, would be why I placed it under the "overcompensation" category. As it stands, it may as well not even exist in the game, it's that useless. There's a difference between balancing a game and rendering something so worthless that there's pratically no reason to even bother with them.

The atwill/encounter/daily system is NOT Vancian. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Not individually, but the explanation for why the Encounter and Daily powers exist is, at least in many examples. They specifically state that they're "wiped" from your mind when you use them until you can replenish them, especially as far as the magicians go. That is, for all intents and purposes save for the lack of using the word "memorization," Vancian.

X powers per day vs. X spells per day until you can get a full night's rest. Same. Damn. Thing.

Encounter powers can be used once an encounter. If you aren't in combat and you use one, it's gone until you take a short rest, which takes 5 minutes. So in essence, you can use encounter powers outside of combat every 5 minutes.

Which means you can't use them effectively unless you're sitting on your ass doing nothing. Wanna maintain an Encounter power while walking through a dungeon or socializing at a party? Can't do it.

The multiclassing stuff isn't sloppy.

It very much is.

It was done that way on purpose.

Ideally, yes. But there are so many examples where it's -clearly- not intended and where there's -clearly- a lack of explanation that it paints it as -completely- sloppy.

Light's "real" purpose is to negate magical darkness, which is why it is handy; if you need light out of combat, use a lantern.

For being yet another rabid fanboy who just spent the last fifteen minutes vomiting up how ignorant I am and how I've never read the book, you sure did cram your foot deep down your esophagus with this bit.

Here's a hint, go read the power. Page 158. Funny how I don't see a single mention of magical darkness, or how it would even come close to thwarting any of the powers that -do- create magical darkness anywhere else in the book.

Which maybe, if you had the capacity to read, would be why I placed it under the "overcompensation" category. As it stands, it may as well not even exist in the game, it's that useless. There's a difference between balancing a game and rendering something so worthless that there's pratically no reason to even bother with them.

I do not have the books. But, as listed, I would respectively disagree. A character who makes finding out truths a focus will have great use for this spell. Unless gold is much scarcer in 4E than 3.5E, this cost is not out of line for expenditures that adventurers make all of the time.

What is different is that a character needs to have planned to be effective with the spell. So you can be better than a diplomat but only be designing your character that way. I think this was a move to allow low and moderate fantasy games to exist; many of the circumstances in fantasy literature fail rapidly with a 2nd level spell (zone of truth). The same was true of "rise dead" and "teleport" -- which should be less of an issue as well.

I don't know for sure if it will be a good change or a bad change but I think it might end up in "correct amount of compensation" territory. Not sure.

I disagree. I went through the Cleric yesterday VERY throughoughly. Yes, there is some rehashing - the "heal someone when you hit an opponent" power had several variations (heal someone, heal everyone nearby, heal everyone nearby without using a healing surge, heal people even further away...). The "heal all allies in an AoE plus damage all enemies in that AoE" also had a few variants, and I think there were two or three variants of "deal AoE elemental damage plus sustain minor to deal damage each turn".

That said, there were also lots of very unique powers - the Seals, for instance, are all pretty distinctive and all have very interesting applications. Their conjurations are also quite cool and seem like they all work quite well in interesting and distinctive ways. Blade Barrier is a cool power as well, and there were lots of other nifty powers which did a variety of things across the levels. Utility powers seem to be something of a mixed bag; some of the cleric utility powers are awesome and others are a bit lame.

Right, that is what I meant by "front-loaded." You can change the quantity or the number of targets or the range of the power (or even add a status effect if it's a really fancy power), but everything seems to fit a similar mold (at least for most of the Rogue powers).

Looking at the Cleric powers between 4-10 more carefully, you can pretty much separate 80% of the powers into "Target cure XXX damage," "Attack and on a hit, affect the target with (immobility/inability to attack/attack penalty/blindness/push 1 square)", or "Summon XXX of YYY type fighters."

What I (and some other posters) am complaining about is more that there's a lack of creativity with truly "different" powers. That being said, Clerics actually probably have the most "creative variety" that I've seen of all the classes, simply due to the Divine Channeling feats.

They changed the skill system, so int really couldn't add skills or what have you. Honestly, I don't think it really is a big deal - it is still used for a number of skills and probably feats as well, and the fact that Arcana uses it means that it won't be totally neglected.

To me (and I've played plenty of wizards in the past), Arcana has been and always will be a "luxury" skill. When there's a full party, there's no reason not to have it, but it's never indispensable. Instead of getting a cheat-sheet of the monster's abilities, you can find out the hard way of getting toasted by it first.

Compare that to Diplomacy or Streetwise (based on CHA), which is strictly necessary for a party for roleplaying purposes. Or compare to Perception/Insight (based on WIS), which is almost necessary to not get wiped out by a clever ambush. Vs. DEX, initiative is important, and frankly no party really can go without a wizard, and no party needs more than one master of Arcana.

So all in all, INT is the new CHA.

You're just wrong, here; monsters are plenty powerful. Remember that the monsters also are likely to save, and this means that on average a status effect will last roughly two rounds on a PCD OR monster. Poison isn't worthless; this is a completely nonsensical statement. It still does things that make it quite worthwhile; ability damage wasn't a good mechanic in the first place, hp damage is fine, and other negative effects on those poisoned are also fine and interesting.

I'll reserve judgement on monster power until I play them, I guess. But what I meant by poison being underpowered is this:

If you chug down a beer with about an ounce of cyanide in it, you're pretty much dead. It's an insta-effect. If you're really the mutant and have hemoglobin molecules that don't chelate cyanide, you will survive. But none of this ongoing damage until you save business. So it's really most simulated by Fort save vs. death. While you could make the initial damage on the poison insanely high, that makes it uber expensive too (and poison damage scales much less well than HP).

Poisons, while useful in combat for ninjas and the like, are still mostly the realm of non-combat subterfuge. The current rules don't reflect this well.

You're not thinking about it from a balance perspective. Please don't say you are. It is bad to allow players to buy tons of consumables and screw themselves in the long run for a boost in the short run. It is bad for people to have wands of CLW to keep fighting at full HP all the time regardless of how much you throw at them. GP should not equate to HP, simply put.

Your statement reeks a bit of fascism. People in real life can choose to invest in Roth IRA retirement funds, or squander their money today (on things like D&D books ). It's silly not to give that choice in game.

Also, the problem of "screwing yourself in the long run" silly non-existent, because gold still scales exponentially (every 5 levels of difference in items in 5x difference in price). So you're just marginally screwing yourself in the long run for short-term benefits.

I'd think a much better solution would be potions that don't cost surges, but cost Move actions (which from what I've seen and heard, is plenty important). I'll probably house-rule that if ever I get around to DMing 4e.

I do not have the books. But, as listed, I would respectively disagree. A character who makes finding out truths a focus will have great use for this spell. Unless gold is much scarcer in 4E than 3.5E, this cost is not out of line for expenditures that adventurers make all of the time.

What is different is that a character needs to have planned to be effective with the spell. So you can be better than a diplomat but only be designing your character that way. I think this was a move to allow low and moderate fantasy games to exist; many of the circumstances in fantasy literature fail rapidly with a 2nd level spell (zone of truth). The same was true of "rise dead" and "teleport" -- which should be less of an issue as well.

I don't know for sure if it will be a good change or a bad change but I think it might end up in "correct amount of compensation" territory. Not sure.

I think the big thing you're missing here is the casting time and duration of the spell. It's not really the gold cost (which is still extreme, especially in the levels when you can first get it) nor the feat requirement nor the chance of failure. It's that you have to sit there and spend ten minutes performing the ritual in front of the guy you want to learn the truth from then pray -- pray -- that after you finish the ritual he decides to even open his mouth for the next five minutes. It's not even useful as a forced interrogation method for that very reason; they just have to keep quiet for five minutes after watching you dance around in a circle or whatever else the ritual entails.

It's just insanely overcompensated for the "problems" it used to cause. Making it a Daily Power with a short duration ("until the start of your next turn") would have solved most of those and still keep it as a functional ability; yeah, once per day you can get a bonus to tell if someone is lying to you. Big whoop. But this? It's asinine.

There's quite a few ritual spells that just make you go "huh?" Phantom Steed is another one. You basically have to blow 430gp (including the cost to buy the ritual) in order to summon up to eight horses that last twelve hours (assuming they take no damage). Keep in mind a riding horse only costs 75gp. Sure, once you approach the epic tier the horses gain some advantages such as waterwalking and flying (a whole ten feet off the ground). I mean, sure, it's so-so if someone comes along and steals/kills your mounts while you're off in a dungeon or something... but still? Making it a ritual with such extreme limitations and requirements?

Knock is yet another example. Instead of having it as a Daily power (so as not to constantly get in the way of a Rogue or other master of Thievery having their moments of glory), it's another ten-minute ritual that costs 35gp and a healing surge. I'm not even sure why it costs a healing surge, but it does. And on top of that, all it does is let you use Arcana +5 in place of Thievery for trying to open a door (and you have to succeed at multiple checks in some situations). That's basically a +5 bonus for ten minutes of wasted time and a handful of gold. At least this ritual has a tangible benefit that can't be had any other way (it allows you a chance to unlock things that Thievery alone couldn't)... but yikes.

Just... they just went crazy with limiting stuff. It's completely out of hand in many, many areas. Game balance works both ways; you can't just cripple something completely and call it balanced.

Right, that is what I meant by "front-loaded." You can change the quantity or the number of targets or the range of the power (or even add a status effect if it's a really fancy power), but everything seems to fit a similar mold (at least for most of the Rogue powers).

Looking at the Cleric powers between 4-10 more carefully, you can pretty much separate 80% of the powers into "Target cure XXX damage," "Attack and on a hit, affect the target with (immobility/inability to attack/attack penalty/blindness/push 1 square)", or "Summon XXX of YYY type fighters."

The problem is that this argument isn't really reasonable. There are buffs, debuffs, damage, and positioning. At its core, that's all there is in an RPG. The key to making interesting powers is not really for them to do a variety of things (as there is only so much they can do) as to combine and present them in different and interesting (and distinct) ways, and I think they do a decent job of it. Some of them DO get boring - all of the "Attack and heal" powers are pretty dull. That said, they do their job and are around for the guy who just wants to upgrade that power, as well as just generic usefulness. The rest need to debuff, buff, ect. in various ways, and I think they do a fine job of it. The conjurations are quite interesting takes on getting extra attacks (or defense, or what have you) and I like their execution in general.

What I (and some other posters) am complaining about is more that there's a lack of creativity with truly "different" powers. That being said, Clerics actually probably have the most "creative variety" that I've seen of all the classes, simply due to the Divine Channeling feats.

I think they're fine in terms of diversity of powers. I've liked what I've seen of fighters so far, though some of their powers just don't interest me. Of course, I have a predilicition for very flashy powers, which means stuff like Come and Get It interests me more than solid powers like Iron Bulwark.

To me (and I've played plenty of wizards in the past), Arcana has been and always will be a "luxury" skill. When there's a full party, there's no reason not to have it, but it's never indispensable. Instead of getting a cheat-sheet of the monster's abilities, you can find out the hard way of getting toasted by it first.

I rather disagree; I think of Arcana as a means of moving the plot as the wizard has some bit of knowledge that is helpful or can tell what the evil diagram was supposed to do.

If you chug down a beer with about an ounce of cyanide in it, you're pretty much dead. It's an insta-effect. If you're really the mutant and have hemoglobin molecules that don't chelate cyanide, you will survive. But none of this ongoing damage until you save business. So it's really most simulated by Fort save vs. death. While you could make the initial damage on the poison insanely high, that makes it uber expensive too (and poison damage scales much less well than HP).

Thing is, SoDs are unfun and bad design. The HP system exists for a reason, and there is no reason to do Con damage instead of HP damage.

Your statement reeks a bit of fascism. People in real life can choose to invest in Roth IRA retirement funds, or squander their money today (on things like D&D books ). It's silly not to give that choice in game.

Also, the problem of "screwing yourself in the long run" silly non-existent, because gold still scales exponentially (every 5 levels of difference in items in 5x difference in price). So you're just marginally screwing yourself in the long run for short-term benefits.

Well, you're screwing yourself for a few levels, and the problem is that this has a very unfun effect on the game. You make others have less fun because your character is too strong, and then when you're too weak you have less fun because you're overshadowed. Yeah, it evens out in the long run, but it is FAR better for it to simply avoid it altogether. It isn't facism, its improved fun. Taking away bad choices with very long ranging consequences isn't a bad thing; people should not be able to screw themselves on their character, only on their actions.

I'd think a much better solution would be potions that don't cost surges, but cost Move actions (which from what I've seen and heard, is plenty important). I'll probably house-rule that if ever I get around to DMing 4e.

You're wrong. Sorry, but you don't really understand the point of the healing surge system.

The entire point of the system is that you have two HP pools - an encounter pool and a daily pool. Healing surges represent your daily pool, and your current HP are your encounter pool. When you use healing surges, you're drawing from your daily pool to refill your encounter pool. The idea is that your encounter pool is considerably smaller than your daily pool. The reason for this is quite simple:

Every combat encounter needs to give you a decent chance of dying if you screw it up, but you should be able to fight in 5 encounters per day for an adventure.

3.5 sucked because, among other reasons, your daily pool WAS your encounter pool. This has the net effect of, if you want people to have 5 encounters that day, ONLY the last encounter will have a real chance of death (and it will be dangerous), and if they choose to rest after the third or fourth because they're "running low", then the last encounter will be rather trivial. The final fight, if it was the strongest, would often lead to a TPK unless the other encounters were too easy (or unless you were cheesing out with magic users and making the game trivial, which is unfun).

The reality is that you have to have healing potions suck your daily pool because otherwise you're going back to 3.x, and 3.x's way of doing things was horrid. Your daily pool simply cannot be your encounter pool, and you should NOT be able to convert gold directly into HP, which is what you're proposing.

Heck, there's even examples where it seems the design team specifically wanted to be a dick to multiclassing.

I'm also a huge fan of multiclassing. The current system *is* a bit unwieldy, but taken from another light, it's not quite as bad as made out to me.

First, the initiate feat. Compare to Skill Proficiency feat. You gain the proficiency, plus a special ability, plus access to other multiclass feats. While some special abilities suck more than others, the Ranger one is actually pretty good, thanks to good skill selection and a 1/encounter +1d6 damage.

The other swapping feats may actually not be that bad either, if simply the result of my "redundancy" argument. Powers for the same class at different levels are very similar excepting some numeric effects, so swapping Deft Strike for Cleave isn't too bad a trade for a Brute Scoundrel rogue.

The paragon path trade kind of blows though, because the paragon powers are generally quite strong.

I think the big thing you're missing here is the casting time and duration of the spell. It's not really the gold cost (which is still extreme, especially in the levels when you can first get it) nor the feat requirement nor the chance of failure. It's that you have to sit there and spend ten minutes performing the ritual in front of the guy you want to learn the truth from then pray -- pray -- that after you finish the ritual he decides to even open his mouth for the next five minutes. It's not even useful as a forced interrogation method for that very reason; they just have to keep quiet for five minutes after watching you dance around in a circle or whatever else the ritual entails.

It's just insanely overcompensated for the "problems" it used to cause. Making it a Daily Power with a short duration ("until the start of your next turn") would have solved most of those and still keep it as a functional ability; yeah, once per day you can get a bonus to tell if someone is lying to you. Big whoop. But this? It's asinine.

Okay, the Phantom steed example sounds really, really bad unless GP is running in streams. The cases where this would be needed are awfully small and I would expect a teleport ritual to always be a better choice (even if more expensive).

I do kind of agree that this makes discern lies useless for a lot of interrogations -- it pretty much falls into the "proving one is innocent" category. Of course, not saying anything could be an indicator of guilt but it makes things much more ambiguous.

I thus do kind of agree that a daily power might have been an alternate way to go. I am very curious to see the rituals in practice and decide if they are a real compensation for utility spells.

If you are a wizard and about to conduct an interview in your office... can you cast the spell, then let the guy in, and have all those bonuses to spotting lies?

Just curious. I mean, do you actually HAVE to do the spell in front of them? I mean, I've waited 5-10 minutes in many a place... you expect that with bureaucrats.

As for the phantom steed ritual... it sounds like it's a great way to get horses for people who are not adventures. It's not going to be useful often, but then again, many 3.x spells were not useful often.

Thing is, SoDs are unfun and bad design. The HP system exists for a reason, and there is no reason to do Con damage instead of HP damage.

Save or Dies can be unfun, I will agree (Wail of the Banshee). But Save or Dies have their place in the game. IF you fail the Perception check to notice a strange smell from your drink and IF you fail your Insight check to notice the bartender acting strangely and IF you don't have a good enough RP reason to suspect someone is trying to kill you, then I think you deserve to suffer possible death due to a Save or Die.

Well, you're screwing yourself for a few levels, and the problem is that this has a very unfun effect on the game. You make others have less fun because your character is too strong, and then when you're too weak you have less fun because you're overshadowed. Yeah, it evens out in the long run, but it is FAR better for it to simply avoid it altogether. It isn't facism, its improved fun. Taking away bad choices with very long ranging consequences isn't a bad thing; people should not be able to screw themselves on their character, only on their actions.

Well, I realize this is the Char-Op forum and all, but going down the "removing bad choices" road leads to things like removing 3.5 Monks and Sorcerors completely. While class balance is important, a large part of "fun" for me is freedom to explore a different mindset and philosophy. I *want* to be the profligate gambler in D&D because I save too much money in real life. In a sense, I *enjoy* suffering long term consequences in game due to "poor" decisions.

Also, I'm a huge fan of rolling your stats and living with the terrible 14/11/10/10/10/8's once in a while. Necessity is the mother of invention, and it's in the games where I started a lower levels than other PCs and/or weaker stats than other PCs that I actually got to think and improvise the most to make myself effective. Refusing to "gimp" characters takes away from that.

You're wrong. Sorry, but you don't really understand the point of the healing surge system.

The entire point of the system is that you have two HP pools - an encounter pool and a daily pool. Healing surges represent your daily pool, and your current HP are your encounter pool. When you use healing surges, you're drawing from your daily pool to refill your encounter pool. The idea is that your encounter pool is considerably smaller than your daily pool. The reason for this is quite simple:

Every combat encounter needs to give you a decent chance of dying if you screw it up, but you should be able to fight in 5 encounters per day for an adventure.

3.5 sucked because, among other reasons, your daily pool WAS your encounter pool. This has the net effect of, if you want people to have 5 encounters that day, ONLY the last encounter will have a real chance of death (and it will be dangerous), and if they choose to rest after the third or fourth because they're "running low", then the last encounter will be rather trivial. The final fight, if it was the strongest, would often lead to a TPK unless the other encounters were too easy (or unless you were cheesing out with magic users and making the game trivial, which is unfun).

The reality is that you have to have healing potions suck your daily pool because otherwise you're going back to 3.x, and 3.x's way of doing things was horrid. Your daily pool simply cannot be your encounter pool, and you should NOT be able to convert gold directly into HP, which is what you're proposing.

Hm, interesting point about encounter vs. daily HP pools. I hadn't thought about it that way. But with classes with drastically different daily HP pools, you'll get the 3.5 wizard dilemma all over again. Low HP strikers like Rangers and Rogues will presumably run out of daily HP more quickly (both because they have less total, and because they take more damage), and will be arguing for the party to take extended rests.

I disagree that the last fight of the day was the only one with any real chance of death in 3.5. When I DM 3.5, there are two kinds of combat encounters: offensive and defensive. Offensive involves the party going to storm a castle or something, while defensive involves some sort of ambush or assassination by the NPCs. I play the NPCs exceptionally strategically, exploiting PC weaknesses where it seems likely they can be discovered through research.

The key to the element of danger is to mix up the two types. Any defensive encounter (such as surviving an assassination attempt) may be followed up by an offensive encounter (such as trying to capture the assassin), which may be followed again by a defensive encounter (an ambush by the assassin's confederates).

In my last campaign, 2 of the four PCs died, in separate occasions. In one case (trying to rescue a prisoner), it was the first encounter of the day. In the other (eating poisoned food prepared by bandits while a separate enemy group was pursuing them), it was the 2nd or 3rd encounter of the day.

And, what's wrong with 1 encounter per day? 4-6 per day is a guideline that fits the "dungeon crawl" motif, but generally not useful for urban campaigns.

Even worse, after looking in numerous places, I couldn't find any way to handle powers outside of combat. At best, some powers say they last five minutes when used... and most of those powers are Encounter powers, which doesn't help at all since you're not always having an encounter when you want to use one.

Did you notice most powers that ladt 5 minutes can be maitained as a minor action like Light. At least KotS it haf the minor action to maintain.

"If you can't believe in yourself, believe in me who believes in you."
and
"Go beyond the impossible, and kick reason to the curb"
Kamina, from Gurren Lagann

Let's not get snippy, people; it can't possibly help us in the discussion.

I would like to say, though, that I do think the balancing stuff has been done superbly. There isn't a single class not worth playing in the book, and that is a good thing. I'm actually amazed, because the claim that the monster levels really do scale correctly to character levels seems to actually hold true. I still will need to see if my predictions are true, but I'm fairly sure four 6th level characters would have an equally hard time against a level 6 solo monster, two level 6 elite monsters, four level 6 normal monsters, eight level 3 normal monsters, and ninety-six level 1 minions. Now, obviously the last one would be a bit irritating to track, but as far as results go, I'm fairly sure that considering the average amount of times they would hit and the damage they would deal before they die would be close to equaling the damage of the single level 6 solo monster. This, of course, depends on the potential of an AoE spell wiping them, but there I'm nearly possible that no single wizard could down 96 squares of zombies in a single round. Hell, the only thing that would get close is if the entire party was wizards, and then they'd go down with from any zombies that manage to get close. I like that.

And, yes, multi-classing is difficult now. I've already felt the sting; I really liked the idea of an Eladrin Fighter nabbing a Feylock's Misty Step for some extra teleporting goodness. But, I also understand why it is not available to me: Warlock Curses (from which the Misty Step stems) is the hallmark of a Warlock. It is one of the defining points of their class, and if I want to have it, I need to be a Warlock. I can grab a few flavored abilities that don't intrinsically change my class' role, but I can't be a true mix of the two. An argument one might make is that this is 'clearly' a limitation on my imagination brought on by the multi-classing rules. However, I don't think it should be viewed as such; the classes are exactly what they set out to be. If you want a class that is a true combination of two classes, you never wanted to be either of the classes to begin with: you want a new class.

So, build one.

The rules are so incredibly simple that there should be little to no difficulty creating your own class with your own abilities. Yeah, we all like things being core, especially here on the CO board; we like to be able to build things that should be universally accepted on any table. "Homebrew," to many, is a dirty word that implies an unbalanced mess of a character class. And I'd have had the same opinion... in 3.x. 4th Edition is so clear cut about how races and classes are designed, it's not hard to follow a pretty basic template.

In effect, the game designers have created a game that has a very simple yet solid framework from which to build a character that does what you want her/him to do. This is a good thing.

Regarding 4e, Arrrrgggh does have some points. The multiclass mechanic is awfully clunky and fails in several key places because of class features.

For example, only a Ranger can take the Ranger paragon paths.

Hunter's Quarry as an encounter power is much, much better than Sneak Attack as an encounter power. This will probably be changed, which is unfortunate because again, no PP's.

A lot of the power requirements make multiclassing unreasonable. For example, a Fighter/Wizard - the traditional multiclass, will have serious problems hitting with his Wiz powers unless he gets a proper level implement as well as a proper level weapon.

Power effects are misleading. Eyebite is pretty horrible as an encounter power, and yet there are already Rogue/Warlocks who think it's the way to go.

Also, the Ranger's Twin Strike is so very superior to Careful Strike, but this is probably only obvious to the mechanically inclined. Careful Strike is almost worthless next to it, with only a few rare instanced it becomes useful (none of them common enough to give an at-will to).

In general, some of the Ranger's flavour is irritating at best, and also provides logical disconnects. His skill-boosting utilities, for example. Seriously, the man gives advice to others every 5 minutes, but can never listen to it himself? What an arrogant *****.

Actually, a lot of problems lie with the Ranger.

The only reason you should get Archery combat style is if you want one of the two Archery PP's. Otherwise, TWF is superior - this reminds me too much of throwaway feat prerequisites. I thought we'd ditched those?

Intelligence is worthless next to Dex for most characters. Cha, Wis, Con and Str all seem to be of somewhat equal worth in comparison to each other. Characters should get some benefit for being smarter than the average bear.

(Skill training should probably have been Int Modifier skills, with classes receiving a more even number of trained skills in general. Probably.)

The (Archery) Ranger's only option when approached is to flee. It'd be great if she could draw a sword and defend herself... but her applicable archery powers require her to dual-wield.

Poisons are pathetic. They're the equivalent of week-old Coca Cola in terms of potency and lethality. (In contrast, diseases are awesome).

Other than those complaints, which are kind of minor, the system is actually pretty solid. I really, really like the way things have been streamlined.

Seriously, I played D&D back in the late 80's and left it for Palladium, which was then a superior system and eventually drifted away from all RPGs. When I came back 5 years ago, I was excited to introduce my new gaming group to Palladium, which I was sure was still the superior system. However, after comparing 2nd edition Palladium with 3.5, there was simply no contest that Wotc had turned lead into gold. Now, I've played two preview adventures and ran some fan-made adventures for my home group and done two 8-hour marathon intro to 4E using KotSF for two different gaming stores.

With all of that under my belt I can unequivocally say that 4E rocks and is simply an evolution of gaming. Sure, if you want to swim about in the H2O, then continue to support 3.75 and leave the rest of us alone!

Wotc has turned gold into platinum. . .

and astral diamonds!!

Oh, the other thing for you folks who insist on complaining, please take a course in effective communication. When you give feedback always start with the positive or you immediately lose your audience. However, if you're just looking for a convenient place to dump your negative feelings because life has kicked you around, then perhaps you'd be better off watching Dr. Phil than posting here!

Oh, the other thing for you folks who insist on complaining, please take a course in effective communication. When you give feedback always start with the positive or you immediately lose your audience. However, if you're just looking for a convenient place to dump your negative feelings because life has kicked you around, then perhaps you'd be better off watching Dr. Phil than posting here!

So you equated people have complaints about significant changes that have been made to a game to people who have significant problems in their life. According to you, one must 120% LOVE the major nerfs and changes to be a normal person in life. Real mature with the personal attacks.

So you equated people have complaints about significant changes that have been made to a game to people who have significant problems in their life. According to you, one must 120% LOVE the major nerfs and changes to be a normal person in life. Real mature with the personal attacks.

Yes did. He basically told that those who have any complaints at all ("those who insist on complaining") shouldn't post on the forums ("than posting here!"), have personal problems ("because life has kicked you around"), and should watch dr.phil more ("you'd be better off watching Dr. Phil").

I quoted, and put in parenthesis, his exact words for your convenience.

also, here is a copy of what I am refering to

"Oh, the other thing for you folks who insist on complaining, please take a course in effective communication. When you give feedback always start with the positive or you immediately lose your audience. However, if you're just looking for a convenient place to dump your negative feelings because life has kicked you around, then perhaps you'd be better off watching Dr. Phil than posting here! "

So you equated people have complaints about significant changes that have been made to a game to people who have significant problems in their life. According to you, one must 120% LOVE the major nerfs and changes to be a normal person in life. Real mature with the personal attacks.

A lot of the power requirements make multiclassing unreasonable. For example, a Fighter/Wizard - the traditional multiclass, will have serious problems hitting with his Wiz powers unless he gets a proper level implement as well as a proper level weapon.

The bonus from an implement isnt that huge. I would be more worried about his Int not being high enough.

Power effects are misleading. Eyebite is pretty horrible as an encounter power, and yet there are already Rogue/Warlocks who think it's the way to go.

I don't see anything wrong with Eyebite as an encounter power for a rogue. It's one more way to turn invisible and get combat advantage for those times you can't get it some other way. It's a useful thing to have in one's toolbox.

The (Archery) Ranger's only option when approached is to flee. It'd be great if she could draw a sword and defend herself... but her applicable archery powers require her to dual-wield.

Or she could move, making some use out of that nifty Defensive Mobility feat that you said was useless, or using any number of powers that let you shift before your attack, and then shoot people in the face.